The TV show released the video of the programme that Kyogo appeared in the off-season. Kyogo returned to his hometown, Nara Prefecture, visited the pool and the team he played in his childhood, and talked about the origin of his current skills.
Japanese TV show released a video that Kyogo appeared in off-season. He said that his swimming experience is benefiting him as footballer now.
🗣️”My stamina for running may be thanks to swimming…”
I’ll release things he said in my article✍️ @CelticStarMag pic.twitter.com/UbH5tKZM5u
— Yatao (@yataoda4) August 9, 2023
Kyogo Furuhashi, who started learning swimming at the age of three and was one of top-class swimmers in Japan when he was in elementary school, visited the pool and talked about what he got from his swimming experience.
Kyogo: “I had stamina due to having my excellent lung capacity. This may be thanks to swimming.”
And he talked about his thoughts on strength training as follows.
Kyogo: “I try not to build muscle as much as possible. I don’t do strength training. For my style of play, speed and movement is everything. I want to avoid not being able to move quickly by building muscle, so I brush up my skills more by working on other things than strength training.”
Next, Kyogo visited Athpegas Ikoma FC, where he played when was in junior high school. Tatsuta, the coach of that team, has been incorporating not only football but also futsal into team training, and Kyogo used to play both football and futsal. Tatsuta coach and Kyogo talked about futsal experiences that can be used in football as follows.
Tatsuta: “Skills like tactics against opponent’s defender in front of the goal and dodging opponent that can be learned through futsal are also used in football. If you play futsal from early age and learn them, it will be advantage when you play football in the future.”
Kyogo: “It’s a very good memory that we became the best in Japan in a futsal competition when I was in junior high school. I scored a lot of goals at that time. The origin of my tactics may be my experience of playing futsal.”
However, it seems that Kyogo was not good at shooting when he was in junior high school.
Tatsuta: “Now he’s good at shooting and can score a lot of goals, but at that time his shooting was rough. Maybe my way of teaching was not good.”
Kyogo: “Not at all. He taught me a lot of ways to shoot well. I took seriously what he taught, so I was able to score goals little by little. His way of teaching was really skillful.”
After the shooting showdown with his juniors, he told them as follows.
Kyogo: “I couldn’t shoot strong shots when I was about the same age as you. I think your shooting speed will improve little by little by training shooting while being aware of the movement of stepping and the speed of swinging your feet.”
Juniors: “Thank you very much.”
After that, the juniors offered to have a shooting showdown again, and it seems that Kyogo and they had a shooting showdown together until the sun went down. Kyogo and Tatsuta had fun talking after this was over.
Tatsuta: “You’ve really improved.”
Kyogo: “Thank you. But that’s not true.”
He smiled happily. He also looked back on the interaction with his juniors as follows.
Kyogo: “All my juniors are energetic. Their physical strength is infinite. I was also determined that I wanted to do my best not to lose to them.”
That’s all about what Kyogo said on the TV show. Finally, I, who was once a top-class swimmer in Japan, will supplement “the lung capacity that can be acquired by swimming” that Kyogo talked about, and insight into positive impacts of swimming experience on Kyogo’s physical function.
While the average lung capacity of general adult men is 2,000-3,000 ml, the average lung capacity of swimmers is 6,000-8,000 ml, which is higher than athletes who play other sports.
When humans breathe, we can’t breathe in and exhale air with only power of our lungs themselves. Muscles around our lungs act to make it possible to breathe. For example, when we breathe in, diaphragm moves, ribs spread, lungs swell, and oxygen enters body. Muscles such as diaphragm are called “muscles of respiration”, and training muscles of respiration is an important point in improving lung capacity.
And the biggest difference between swimming and other sports is that breathing is restricted. This restriction strengthens muscles of respiration and allows us to absorb more air into body in a short time. In addition, water pressure is applied to our body just by being in the water, so the amount of oxygen that can be taken into lungs with a single breath is small, but lung activity is improved by training under that situation.
Also, if VO2 Max (maximal oxygen consumption) improves, AT (anaerobic threshold) improves. If AT improves, tolerance value when lactic acid increases increase. This allow us to do higher performance over a longer period of time and increase the speed of movement.
The density of water is about 800 times that of air, so it has high effect on tightening muscles, and it can be said that swimming was useful for development of Kyogo’s physically poor muscles and the improvement of basic physical functions in his childhood.
In addition, by swimming faster, Fast-Twitch Muscle Fibers is strengthened and agility is increased, and by swimming for a long time and long distance, Slow-Twitch Muscle Fibers is developed and stamina is acquired.
Based on the fact that Kyogo worked hard on swimming when he was in childhood, there is no doubt that his physical functions necessary for his current characteristics like agility, speed, and stamina are due to his experience of swimming. And swimming is an exercise that uses the whole body, so his body must have been balanced the muscles of the whole body just by swimming.
In fact, as far as I can see from Kyogo’s crawl form, he can swim while using his core well, and it’s very beautiful and skilful. I think the core he got from swimming experience in his childhood has positive impacts on his performance as footballer. That’s all.
Yatao
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— Yatao (@yataoda4) May 15, 2023
“I look at the likes of Kyogo Furuhashi, or Diazen Maeda, Reo Hatate and think, ‘you’re so dynamic, powerful, and athletic’. I’d be knocking on the door asking them what they do. What they eat for breakfast, how often they stretch, how many weights?”
– Lee Johnson, 2022. pic.twitter.com/bCjkQAxIs9
— Johnsonism’s ™️ (@BrentOrJohnson) August 14, 2023
Meanwhile, check out Matt Corr speaking to the one and only Martin O’Neill on The Celtic Star Podcast…
